Russian wealth fund predicts US companies will return in 2025

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund expects several U.S. companies to return to the Russian market as early as the second quarter of 2025. 

The fund’s chief, Kirill Dmitriev, said this following the highest-level U.S.-Russia meeting since the Ukraine war began.

When President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022, numerous Western companies, including McDonald’s and Caterpillar, withdrew from Russia, taking significant financial losses as they sold their assets at steep discounts. 

However, with U.S. President Donald Trump shifting Western policy on Russia and Ukraine as well as ordering direct talks with Moscow without Ukraine or European powers and advocating lower oil prices, some in Russia anticipate a renewal of economic ties.

“The Russian Direct Investment Fund expects a number of American companies to return to the Russian market in the second quarter of 2025,” Dmitriev told Reuters.

He noted that returning firms would face challenges due to domestic producers having taken over many sectors previously dominated by Western brands. “But the return process for American companies will not be easy, as many niches are already taken,” he said.

Dmitriev’s comments came after his discussions in Saudi Arabia with senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. While he led Russia’s economic delegation, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov handled the political discussions.

Trump, who has vowed to end the war in Ukraine, has suggested he could meet Putin this month and dismissed concerns from Kyiv about being excluded from negotiations in Riyadh.

With diplomatic channels reopening after what officials described as the worst U.S.-Russia crisis since the 1962 Cuban missile standoff, some in Moscow hope economic relations will follow suit. 

Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs and McKinsey executive, estimated that U.S. firms have lost $324 billion by leaving Russia, a country with the world’s largest natural resource reserves.

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